If Life Was Fair (I'd be Rich & Have Hair)

The SAT will be adding an “adversity score” algorithm in an attempt to level the playing field for disadvantaged students. In these contentious times, this has, shockingly, generated a bit of controversy. 

I don’t pretend to know if an “adversity score”  is a good idea or bad idea. I give credit to the Educational Testing Service (ETS) for having (what passes for) its heart in the right place, for recognizing the inherent advantages of children from the affluent classes. ETS, of course, is also not divulging any of the details of its proprietary algorithm. While I don’t find fault with that decision, I also don’t trust them to make it work like it’s supposed to.

The program has been criticized from both poles, so maybe it’s not all bad. The bribery scandal that allegedly shocked the nation (Were you shocked? Was it really news that children of the wealthy had advantages not available to mere mortals?) was just an evolution. Large “donations” have been buying acceptance letters to prestigious schools for decades; we need look no further than our government. The main difference here was the attempt to make the process less obvious. You want more evidence? How about the fact that you can now buy an entry for your child if (s)he doesn’t actually win a ticket to the national spelling bee? ($1500 plus your travel and lodging expenses)

I’m not so naïve as to believe that adding one variable to the formula will change much, certainly not in the big picture. If you can pick your parents, all other things being equal, money will open more doors. I doubt that the number of kids, nationwide, who get a small bump to a (maybe more prestigious, not necessarily more appropriate*) particular school will be significant. If those few that do benefit bump an advantaged kid to a less prestigious, but undoubtedly still high quality, school, well, I doubt that will severely handicap the affluent kid.

In theory, though, this provides information to the admissions counselors (process) that may (slightly) change the perspective of the decision makers. Just knowing that an “adversity score” has been added may open eyes if not doors. Of course, because the Law of Unintended Consequences will not be denied, it might also unfairly discount the efforts of an applicant who would have received consideration outside of some arcane formula.

I’m skeptical that we can achieve fairness in the admissions process (or much of anything else, for that matter). That doesn’t mean, however, that we shouldn’t try to find ways to, if not actually level the playing field, at least remove some of the landmines. The effort and intent alone are worthwhile reminders that some of us start life’s marathon with unshared advantages that give us a head start.

* I was accepted at, and matriculated to, an allegedly prestigious college, with more graduates (per capita) than Harvard or Yale listed in Who’s Who in America, thanks in part to the fact that standardized tests were rigged in favor of white middle class (and above) kids (should there have been a “lack of adversity” factor?). Ivies, or Little Ivies, are not necessarily the best fit for kids from, shall we way, more common backgrounds. That was certainly the case for Hamilton (named for Alex while he was still alive) College and me. Mind you, my failure there was on me (does it make me exceptional, by comparison, to accept actual responsibility for that?), my immaturity, the cultural and socio-economic disparity between me and many of my classmates, my inflated opinion of my level of sophistication, plus multiple other factors obvious in hindsight.  Some of those would probably have played out no matter where I attended, but the point is, I used the wrong criteria (prestige high among them) to make my decision. But it all worked out, for me, at least, and I recognize my outcome was based, at least in part, on the advantages I had starting out.

Echoes from My Past Reinvigorate

This blog has (obviously) been on hiatus and you may have wondered why (or not). While nothing is really that simple, the simplest answer is that I found the current socio-political situation just too depressing, polarized, and entrenched to invest my increasingly limited energy into writing about it, feeling as though I’d either be preaching to the choir or screaming into a vacuum. Neither seemed worthwhile, plus, most of the time, I concluded that I had nothing of significance to add to my previous offerings.

So what has changed? Why emerge from hibernation now?

I arrived home Wednesday to a package, sent by my last high school girlfriend who had inexplicably saved all the letters I sent her through my first year of college. Inspired by an advice column in her local newspaper, she took the time to find my address and mail them to me (making sure to note that I wasn’t that special, she saved EVERYBODY’s letters!). While I’ve been wading through the 40+ epistles (she was right on target, I certainly wasn’t that special), I realized I wrote A LOT of letters (and, based on references in those missives, to a number of people).

As embarrassing as those letters are (Carolyn, thankfully, has shown zero interest in reading any of them; we long since concluded that my former self would not have been the least bit attractive to her.), what I quickly came to realize is that writing isn’t just something I do (obviously for fun, clearly not for profit), rather something I NEED. Looking back, I recognize that it was also something I did, regularly, throughout my teaching career (former colleagues will remember the union local’s most powerful weapon, TGIF), plus the occasional “Random Thoughts” memo after that newsletter disappeared (and, IMO, the local’s power went into decline).

While I always said that I wrote this blog for myself, that packet of letters from the past (I may have mentioned how embarrassing I find them now!) reminded me of the importance of continuing to write, not for the benefit of any particular audience (although I will not deny I do like having an audience, no matter how small, which may explain, at least to a certain extent, why I have a blog instead of a diary), but for my own mental health and well-being.

So, fair warning. Don’t Get Berndt is (probably) getting a re-boot. Whether it informs, entertains or (even) annoys you, this I do for me.

Genesis of a Libtard

Unlike Lady GaGa, I wasn’t born this way. I was a disaffected Republican long before I became what I am today, a disaffected Democrat. What follows is obviously incomplete, despite its length. My apologies because the point probably gets made well before the piece more stops than ends; perhaps this will eventually become a chapter in my autobiographical memoir.

Although my (moderately) conservative/Republican roots run deep, I am the outlier in my family. My father probably never voted for a Democrat in his life. In his later years at Friendship Village, he was a regular at meetings of the Concerned Conservative Citizens (aka Cranky Old White Boys Club). My brothers probably tilt farther right than I do left. But my final paper in my senior year of high school (1966) was an earnest assessment of the Republican Party and who in it could best return the country to their leadership. The first group I tried to join at the prep-school dominated Hamilton (named for Alex while he was still alive – old ivy on those walls) College was the Young Republicans.

So how did a white bread suburban boy (from the originally solid Republican Webster Groves) end up inhabiting the left side of the political spectrum? Because I reject simple and simplistic explanations and solutions, you may not be surprised to learn that I believe there are multiple reasons for my evolution and leftward shift.

• Child of the ‘60s: Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, Bob Dylan. Conservatives who now control the Republican Party have been consistent opponents to the expansion of civil rights for minorities and women since the ‘60s; Nixon’s “southern strategy” politically solidified that stance. Karl Rove put it in concrete with rebar reinforcements.

• First Job: Orderly on the men’s ward of old St. Luke’s on Delmar, lots of black patients and co-workers. Spare time reading the St. Louis American. God forbid I actually do any of the assigned reading required by UM-St. Louis!

• Marriage to an intelligent woman (met and worked with at the aforementioned St. Luke’s); father to an intelligent daughter, who has since given birth to an intelligent granddaughter. The goals of the women’s movement were/are obviously important – and personal. (My mother was born too soon and frustrated by the limited roles available to her. That added to the movement’s appeal.)

• Public school teacher in a district that served a population that did not share many of the advantages of their more affluent neighbors, including those in schools I had attended (Webster Groves and Ladue). This changed me on at least three different levels.

      ° I found myself almost immediately thrust into the nascent teacher union movement. Let’s just say that conservatives were not supportive of teachers having any power to advocate for themselves or their students. That being said, it was not always a Republican/Democrat dichotomy, and I voted for several Republican state representatives and state senators. Union endorsements tilted Blue, but were not exclusive by any means, at least not at first. In fact, as I set out in 1976 to find a candidate to support for state representative, Republicans were my first choice because the WG then was reliably Republican and I wanted to back a winner; WG, too, has shifted away from the new Republican Party; those denizens who remain are often derisively referred to as RINOs. As union power grew within the Democrat party, the Republican party countered by moving the right and becoming even less friendly, sometimes seemingly antagonistic, to the concerns of public education and educators (where it remains), as well as unions and workers in general.

      ° The word “underprivileged” rubs many of my formers the wrong way; one reason may be that “privilege” has taken on a different, more politically charged, meaning in the modern lexicon. Maybe they perceive the term as some kind of condescension that discounts what they’ve accomplished in life. Perhaps a preferable term is “disadvantaged.” Those students didn’t understand (and some still don’t, it seems to me) how badly the system is rigged, stacked against them. That many manage to beat the rigged game and still overcome those disadvantages speaks loudly to their resilience, but does not negate the existence of those obstacles they had to conquer to do so.

      ° While it is not a job requirement, per se, most teachers, or at least most of the best I know, are empathetic; we know that no one is solely responsible for either success or failure. Most of us have no trouble with the expression, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” Empathy has become a dirty word to modern day Republicans; and Trumpists, well, that’s a rant for another day, leading to....

• A growing belief that just because something is not MY problem does not keep it from being A problem. I find the left more accommodating of that POV than the right. In my dotage I have greatly narrowed the focus of the problems on which I concentrate, but that does NOT mean I can’t recognize the importance of the oh so many others faced by my fellow citizens. I have used the analogy before, but conservatives’ version of a social safety net is a leftover rope and the admonition to “Pull yourself up.” While liberals seemingly want to solve every problem, no matter how few people it affects, often devising overly complex (and often ineffective) systems that validate the Law of Unintended Consequences, they at least generally recognize that complex problems require more than simplistic solutions.

Finally, or at least my final point, is conservative resistance to the concept that health care is, or should be, a right of all citizens, and not limited by jobs or economic status. I have a daughter and granddaughter afflicted, through no fault of their own, with auto-immune diseases that could block them from affordable access to the health care system without the current protections for those with pre-existing conditions that conservatives want to strip from current law, so this is obviously extremely personal.

As the parties themselves become increasingly tribal, polar and partisan, I am disaffected, and often disgusted, by both. That’s my story and so here I stand, with clowns to left of me and jokers to the right; I certainly lean left now, but really see myself as stuck in the middle (hopefully with you).

Disclaimer: This deliberately provocative title to grab attention does NOT constitute permission to aim such an offensive insult at any other person or group; that would include me.

How I Became a One-Issue Voter

Single issue voters always bothered me, always made me wonder, “How can you exclude everything save for that one issue (that often does not even affect you or your family directly or personally), whether it’s abortion, or guns, or the environment?” Please note, there are one-issue voters on both poles of all those issues.

However, I fear that I have become a one-issue voter myself, because I confess that a politician will NEVER get my vote if (s)he threatens affordable access to health care for people who have pre-existing conditions. And, no, (I am looking at you, Josh Hawley and Ann Wagner) saying you’ll fix it after you take it away doesn’t count. I would point out that Republicans (and it is generally Republicans who are (or at least were until the issue became toxic) threatening to take away affordable coverage for those pre-existing conditions) controlled the Congress and Presidency for 6 straight years during Bush-45 and barely even gave lip-service to the issue, much less took action.

For me this issue is personal. I have a daughter and granddaughter with auto-immune diseases. They deserve access to affordable health care. Everybody does. So any politician who threatens their access will never get my vote. And if you tell me it’s not important (because you don’t have to deal with it – yet), then you are my political enemy.

And if you, or someone you love or care about, doesn’t have a pre-existing condition, you can be thankful and then add the word, “yet.” Because, and especially if insurance companies get to decide what constitutes a pre-exisiting condition, it is almost inevitable that this issue will touch you. Yes, you may have a job with health benefits now, but how confident are you that that will be true in a year, or five, or ten…. Or will you be afraid to change jobs, take a promotion, for fear that your precious (and it is, indeed, precious) health insurance that covers now or future health challenges might change? Who can afford to wait for MediCare (which does cover those pre-exisiting conditions)?

A caring society cares for the health of all its citizens. Access to affordable health care is a right (to life).

Fear the Mob

– An Explanation, Not a Defense

I want to share a story. It’s one I’ve shared with numerous students over my career. Whether it makes anyone think differently or not, whether it will even give pause, I don’t know. But maybe it will explain how easily and quickly people can get caught up in a mob, in a moment.

It was the summer of my junior year in high school. I was traveling with some of my classmates on a church!-sponsored youth experience, working with other students from multiple European countries to rehab a castle in Untergruppenbach  Germany. We were, if memory serves (and, sadly, it’s not as good a servant as it used to be), the largest single contingent in the “camp.”

Conditions were, at least from an affluent American kid’s perspective, Spartan, although hardly something out of Oliver!, had it been filmed yet. We slept on cots in a room repurposed as a dormitory. But it was the food that became the bone of contention. Breakfast consisted of a kind of mush or oatmeal, mint tea, and bread. Our morning break was dark bread and more mint tea. Lunch was a repeat of breakfast. Not typical fare for us.

Our alleged leader, a young minister, apparently either took this “abuse” personally or took advantage of our complaining to try weasel his way into our hearts. (I freely admit that this is not an unbiased assessment of him; I didn’t like him, didn’t respect him, although, in my defense, his actions, and not just the one related in this anecdote, on this trip were the primary causes of my negative opinion.) In any case, about 3-4 days (as I recall) into the trip, he stood up at lunch one day, banged his bowl, and said, “We’re not taking this any more. Let’s go!”

It was, at that moment, I officially lost my mind... ...to the mob. Most (at least) of us also stood up, bowls of mush in hand, and, following his lead, stormed out the room, looking for the owner of the castle. Not sure what we were going to do when we found him; there were no chickens about, so “mushing and feathering” would seem to have been out. It didn’t take much stomping randomly through the building for some of us to decide, “Uh, this is stupid and embarrassing;” the mob lost steam and dissipated. We went from sheep to sheepishly returning to finish our gruel. 

That should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t, not for me. In retrospect, it remains one of the most frightening events of my life. I don’t pretend to be particularly modest about my intellectual abilities. But, for those brief minutes, my mind was not mine; I was not in control. I was just another anonymous follower. It is a feeling, one that strikes fear into my heart to this day, that I never want to repeat.

Imagine, now, had the grievance been serious, legitimate (at least in our perception), of long-standing, simmering on low-heat over a period of years. Cooks know it doesn’t take much more heat to turn a simmer into a raging boil, bubbling over onto the stove. If there’s no one there to turn down the heat, but instead add fuel to the fire (e.g., media and agenda-driven “leaders”)....

Think it couldn’t happen to you? Armies have relied on this semi-controlled sublimation of individual will for centuries. It’s the only rational explanation of the irrational act of charging to a certain death. Sports mobs, in and out of stadiums, are another common example. Mass hysteria is well documented. We all like to think we’re exceptional, to believe that we wouldn’t act that way, but there’s too much scientific evidence to the contrary for that to be true. Something to think about before we rush to judgment of others or absolve demagogues of responsibility.

Note: This sat in draft form for over two years, dating back to Ferguson and other events. The more things change....